This latest work is populated with characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
